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Film Title: The Kite Runner

 Best for ages: 13 and up.

Movie Website: Click Here

Year Released: 2007

Rated: PG-13 (US)

SYNOPSIS

   Based on the best selling book by author Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner is about two boys growing up together in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion.  Both boys enjoy flying kites together and competing with other kite flyers in a game in which they try to cut their opponents kite string.  The boys names are Amir and Hassan.  Amir father is a very wealthy man, and Hassan is his servant Ali's son. Both boys are the best of friends and are great at flying kites together. One day however, the soviets invade Afghanistan and Amir and his father are forced to leave the country. The two boys are separated.  Years later Amir and his father are living in America, life goes on, Amir finds love, but one day as faith would have it, he needs to return to Afghanistan to find out some secrets about his past.

VIOLENCE/GRAPHIC CONTENT/language

 The Kite Runner is a film that actually deals more with cultural and historic violence more than anything. There is your basic war violence in this film, men shooting and carrying around guns. There are a few scenes that do contain some graphic content such as a scene that involves a big fight, two people being stoned to death in front of a crowd of men in a soccer stadium. There is also a scene in which a boy is raped by older boys because of his race and social status. This scene however is not as graphic as it is implied but there are some reactions shots of the characters who are part of the situation.

  There is a lot of cultural differences involved in this film that might cause many questions to be asked by your children. Such things involve the social status of people in Afghanistan and the way people from different tribes treat each other based on the way they look and their beliefs. There are also ways in which disciplinary actions are taken by parents upon their children, the way in which marriages are arranged and the overall struggles of life within a country that is based on religious beliefs and fanaticism.  The Taliban is also present in the last half of this film and there are some scenes in which we see war torn Afghanistan and the way in which the people are being treated by the Taliban.  Men must all have fully grown beards or suffer a horrible penalty.  All the children that are in orphanages are sometimes sold as slaves to rich members of the the Taliban or militia. I must also mention their is a scene where a Russian soldier demands that an Afghan women who has recently given birth have sexual relations with him in order to cross over the border into Pakistan.

  So pretty much you can see by the tone of this film that there would be a lot of thing that many children won't understand and some things that you might not want them to see. But at the same time for your older children it might be a good film to help them understand that some nations don't have it so lucky when it comes to their way of living and their government. 

OVERALL VIEWS

   I really enjoyed The Kite Runner, it was a film that had a wonderful screenplay and even though it was a long movie (Running 128 minutes). I found myself really getting into the story and the great characters. It's a drama that is not only haunting but is also inspiring. It's no wonder that the book has been on the New York Times bestsellers list for a long time. Everything from the overall production value to the great acting is just phenomenal.  It may not be the best family film, but it is defiantly a film for parents.

  The Kite Runner is a movie that really shows that the people in Afghanistan did once live very well before the soviet armies invaded the country and then the Taliban took over.  The people in the country are not the criminals that we might all think them to be since 9/11 happened, but that they themselves were once victims of communism government themselves until the USA and it allies invaded the country after 9/11. It's a story that shows that not all people from Afghanistan are the terrorists that we make them out to be, but that the majority of them wish to live a peaceful life free of fear. The Kite Runner tells us a lot about their culture, the people, and how flying kites is one of the many enjoyable things that the children of Afghanistan have enjoyed until the Taliban took over. In a way one can look at this film as being more of a historic piece of cinema that tells us the story of not only the characters in this film, but about the country of Afghanistan and how it has changed in the past thirty plus years.

   As I mentioned above, The Kite Runner is not a film for younger children to watch, but it is a film that you might want to sit down with your older children, maybe twelve, thirteen years old and let them see and learn about the culture and people who live in Afghanistan. Not only is it an enjoyable movie, but it also can serve as not only a history lesson, but a life lesson as well.  It's defiantly a film that I at least recommend for parents and older adults to watch.

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